Look up!

I've posted before about the importance of looking up and around when you're out in the field. In 2012, on a field trip that crisscrossed a remote corner of Dinosaur Provincial Park and some of the private land surrounding it, I took the following two photos.

The red arrow in the top photo is pointing to my scale card, which has 1 cm markers on the right side.  This scale card is as high up the exposure as I could reach.  The blue arrow is pointing to some eroded but still cool cross-bedding.  And above that is the really cool reason to look up.  A dinosaur bone.

High up in the badlands. The scale card at the bottom is in the highest nook I could reach.

The bone is still there because this is a remote area that you need permits and permission to access. It's possible it has only recently been exposed, and I overheard field trip participants talking about how they could climb up to get it down to take home. Fortunately, they were ushered on before they could carry out their plan.  Because of the nature of the southern Alberta badlands, they wouldn't be able to find it again if they went back on their own either. 

A closer look at the dinosaur bone.